Sheet separator



NV 19, '1968 c. B. ALBRIGHT 3,411,770

SHEET SEFARATOR Filed Aug. 4, 1966 INVENTOR CHARLES BARTON ALBRIGHT ATTORNEY FIG. 5

United States Patent O 3,411,770 SHEET SEPARATOR Charles Barton Albright, Norristown, Pa., assignor to Sperry Rand Corporation, New York, N.Y., a corporation of Delaware Filed Aug. 4, 1966, Ser. No. 570,299 Claims. (Cl. 271-26) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE The present device provides a jet of air which is directed vertically downward against a stack of unit records or sheets. The unit records are moved upwardly through -a magazine at a controlled rate of speed toward the vertical jet of air. The magazine includes 1a preseparator device which emits jets of air transversely through the upper layers of the unit records as the unit records approach the vertical jet. The transverse jets serve to separate the upper layers thereby making them ready to be separated by the vertical jet. When the top unit record reaches a predetermined position, the velocity of the vertical stream in its radial excursion creates a differential of pressure and the top unit record is snapped upward from the stack. The magazine has `an open end through which the separated top unit record is moved.

The invention relates to apparatus to effect a separation of sheets, or web means, and the feeding of said sheets into a sheet transport means employing -an all iluid technique.

In accordance with the prior art, sheet means, such as documents, or unit records, have been separated with apparatus employing vacuum techniques wherein the vacuum outlet member cornes in contact with the sheet, or document, in order to lift the-document from a stack of such documents, in a manner similar to the ordinary household vacuum cleaner. Thereafter, the document, or sheet, has been pulled away from the vacuum outlet member by various means including belts, rollers, etc.

The present invention provides an apparatus whereby the sheets, or documents, are, separated from their magazine stack by an all-fluid technique, that is, not in contact with any parts of the apparatus that would normally be identified as hardware The present invention further provides a means for delivering the separated documents into an all-fluid transport means, again without employing any contact with hardware. Although the present invention will be described in connection with a unit record system, it is to be understood that it can be used with other forms of sheet transport apparatus.

Briefly described, this invention provides a separator which directs a primary stream of air vertically downward through a round aperture land a round flat head against a stack of unit records or sheets. The unit records are moved upwardly trhough a magazine :at a controlled rate of speed toward the separator head. Simultaneously, a second member identified as a pre-separator directs air transversely through the upper layers of the stack which urges the separation of these upper layers and simultaneously one component of this transverse air flow is directed towards a unit record all fluid transport means.

The primary air stream from the separator :acts in a twofold manner. First of all, it keeps the unit records depressed in the preseparator until the top unit record reaches a physical position wherein the velocity of the stream in its radial excursion creates a suffi-cient difierential of pressure (i.e., the Bernoulli effect) to cause the top unit record to snap upward in close proximity (in the present embodiment the selected unit record is within a few thousandths of an inch) to the bottom surface of the 3,411,770 Patented Nov. 19, 1968 Separator head. It is at this time that the top document will be literally suspended in air. The apparatus further provides a means for gravitationally directing the lastdescribed suspended document toward the entrance of the document transport apparatus.

Accordingly it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved document feeding means which is characterized by an all fluid mode of operation.

In the drawings:

FIGURE 1 is a section-al view taken along the lines 1-1 of FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 2 is a top plan view of apparatus embodying the preferred form of the invention;

FIGURE 3 is an enlarged sectional view of the unit record separator head of the invention;

FIGURE 4 is an elevation view with parts broken away to show the interior of the apparatus; and

FIGURE 5 is a fragmentary view showing a magazine supporting element.

While the invention is useful in connection with a wide vVariety of unit record handling apparatus, it has been especially designed for use with the unit record handling system employing an all fluid technique wherein individual unit records are successively separated from a stack of unit records and then moved through an accelerator means and an alignmentmeans, :as well as through a reading station. The unit records are forwarded from the reading station to restacking stations in serial order as more fully described in applicants co-pending application, Ser. No. 570,304, filed Aug. 4, 1966, entitled Sheet Handling System Employing an All Fluid Transport Technique.

With reference to FIGURE 4 it is seen that the invention comprises broadly the unit record separator head 10, a preseparator 16, and a cartridge or magazine 12 for holding a supply of unit records to be fed into an accelerator 14 such as described in Applicants co-pending application, Ser. No. 570,312, led Aug. 4, 1966, and entitled All Fluid Unit Record Accelerator.

As seen in FIGURE 2, the hollow U-shaped collar member 16 (preseparator), which is depicted as being attached to the fixed structure 17 by means of brackets 18, is disposed to have its inner loop section, or bay area, located under the separator head 10. Spanning the arms 20 and 22 of the collar is an inverted U-shaped bracket member 24 which is provided to enable an adjustable mounting of the separator head 26 over the unit records 28 (FIGURE 4) as they are moved upwardly through the magazine 12.

The separator head 26 (FIGURE l) is mounted on the lower end of a conduit, or tube 30, the other end 32 of which is connected to a suitable pressurized source of `air (not shown). In the preferred embodiment the tube 30 is at least six inches long in order to establish a laminar air flow. The tube 30 extends through a boss 34 on the top plate of the inverted U-shaped member 24. The tube 30 is adjustably secured within the boss by the thumbscrew 36. Accordingly, the upper section of tube 30 is flexible to accommodate any adjustments in the pressure head. Transverse adjustability of the separator head 26 is by means Iof a pair of pins 38 extending downwardly from the bottom edge of each of the bracket legs 40 into small apertures 42 in the top of the collar 16.

The chamber 44 (FIGURE l) in the collar 16 is connected into a suitable source of air pressure (not shown) by means of the tube 46 extending from its back wall 48.

The inner Walls of the U-shaped collar are provided with a plurality of vertically elongated apertures 50 (FIG- URE 1) used for the purpose to be described hereinafter. Secured to the back wall 17 and further secured to the lower portion of the collar 16 are three channel forming members 52, 53 and 58. The channel forming member 52 is disposed such that its most forward edge is aligned with the inward edge of the back Wall 54, while the channel forming membe-r 53 is aligned with the side wall 56 and the channel forming member 58 is aligned with the front wall 57. These last mentioned channel forming members .provide a channel into which a flange 60 of the magazine 12 can be inserted in order that the magazine 12 can be releasably secured to the preseparating station with its upper end aligned such that the unit records will be fed into the space between the arms 20 and 22. The channel forming member further plays the role of providing a means to mount a pair of spaced pins 62 each of whose upward extremity terminates just below the entrance to chute 63 of the accelerator 14. Accordingly, a positive stop is provided to insure that individual documents will be fed into the chute as described more fully below.

In addition, a stop feed pin 64 is retractably supported above the collar 16 by the arm 66 which arm is secured to the fixed means 17. The pin 64 can be moved by any demand feed or stop feed actuator, such as a solenoid or fluid operated device. For purposes -of discussion, there is shown secured to the arm 66 a solenoid 72. The control of the actuator or solenoid 72 is by a clock mechanism, or by a computer control, depending upon the utility to which the all fluid transport is applied.

The separator and feeding apparatus are mounted at a slight angle to the path of the chute 63, as seen in FIGURE 4, of the accelerator 14 in order to take advantage of gravity, as will be more fully explained hereinbelow. The gravity component of force aids in feeding the unit records int-o the chute 63.

The magazine 12 is stabilized in its operative position by mating the head pins 76 into the bracket 77. Brackets 77 are secured to the securing wall 17 as depicted in FIGURE 5.

As seen in FIGURE 4, the unit records 28 are fed upwardly through the magazine 12 by a pressure plate 82 fixed to the upper end of a shaft means 84. Shaft means 84 may be actuated by any suitable means such as a cam driven mechanism or in an alternative by a w-ormscrew wherein the shaft 84 is actually a screw device. For the purposes of this discussion it need only be understood that the shaft 84 is positively driven in an upward direction at a constant rate.

In one embodiment, the pressure plate 82 raises the unit record stack at approximately inches per minute under a continuous feed mode of operation. However, the rate of rise of the pressure plate will be variable to accommodate various operating conditions of the handling apparatus mentioned above. As the records are arranged into the bay of the collar 16, high pressure air being fed through tube 30 is directed against the top unit record. When the top unit record is a reasonably long distance from the opening of tube 30, the static pressure exerted by the column of air coming from tube 30 will be exerted over a reasonably wide spread area of the record. This is true because a freely expanding jet assumes a conelike shape since it exerts force in all directions. However, because the top unit record is continually moved closer to the under surface of the separator head the coneline shape of the air jet issuing from tube 30 is gradually forced to change to a more flattened radial excursion and the effective radial ow area in the immediate region around the tube 30 is increased. As this action proceeds, the velocity pressure increases in the immediate flow area just mentioned, while the static pressure becomes lower in conformity with Bemoullis principle. As the unit record continues to move towards the separator undersurface a critical point is reached Where the net static pressure -force acting on the upper surface of the unit record is less than the net static pressure force, (atmospheric or otherwise), acting on the lower surface and the unit record is then forced up toward the separator.

Once this critical action has begun, the effect is selfaccelerating because the effective immediate radial flow area diminishes at an increasing rate and, thus, the static pressure force differential acr-oss the unit record becomes increasingly greater. However, an equilibrium point is reached by the unit record wherein its upward motion stops short of contact with the under surface of the separator head. Air ow is still emanating from tube 30 and a low static pressure region still surrounds the immediate region of tube 30. However, as the air continues to flow radially further from tube 30 it is obvious that the ow area increases in proportion to its radius to tube 30. Because of this fact, the velocity pressure decreases in proportion to the above-mentioned radius, while the static pressure, in conformity with Bernoullis principle, rises. At some radius from the tube 30 the static pressure recovery is such that it rises above the next static pressure fo-rce acting on the lower surface of the unit record. Neglecting the force of g-ravity, and using the next static pressure force acting on the lower surface of the unit record as a reference line, a static pressure curve depicting the pressure profile from the tube 30 to the outer circumference of the separator head under surface would show that the area bounded by the curve below the reference line is equal to the area bounded by the curve above the line. Thus, the unit record is held in a state of equilibrium and held away from the under surface of the separator head by a thin layer of moving air. In actual practice the area below the reference line would he slightly larger than that above the line in order to maintain the unit record in suspensi-on against the force of gravity.

As mentioned earlier, since the feeding cartridge and the separator head 26 are tipped forward toward the accelerator station of the transport, the unit record hanging in air is caused by the force of gravity to move toward the transport. This motion is aided further by two other forces. One such force is a stream of air from the far end of the preseparator 16 which is directed toward the transport. In .other words, the air which is emanating from the elongated apertures in the back wall 54. The second force is the strong stream of induced air leading directly into the entrance of the transport. This latter force is more fully described in my above-mentioned co-pending application entitled All Fluid Unit Record Accelerator wherein it is explained that the air jets within the accelerator create a pressure differential between the entrance of the chute and the ambiant surroundings and hence cause an airow into the entrance of the chute.

The metal thickness -of the separator head 26 has particular significance. If the separator head 26 were a thin plate, the high velocity air leaving the small gap between the head and the top unit record would set up an induced secondary air movement above `and below the top unit record and this secondary air movement below the top unit lrecord would tend t-o raise the second unit record following the one on top which is about to be fed. The vertical wall created by the metal thickness of the separator head 26 effectively reduces the secondary air flow to a point where the second unit record is unaffected.

As each unit record is fed from under the separator head the next one is snapped up into position as just described for feeding into the chute of the accelerator. The rate of feed, of course, depends upon the rate at which the pressure plate 82 moves the stack upwardly.

A feature of the invention is the fact that the feeding action of the unit record is accomplished by the pressures of the fluid (air) as well as gravity and hence no hardware actually comes in contact with the feeding action of the unit records.

The air pressure through the elongated apertures 50 on the inner walls of the collar 16 rile and separate the records in the top layers of the stack which aids in the feeding process.

Feeding may be instantly halted or stopped by actuation of the solenoid 72 which can project pin 64 downwardly between the pin 62 and/or at the same time shutting off the driving means which drives the shaft 84 upward.

The present invention provides a device to separate sheet items to be processed. The present device employs a fluid technique to lift one item at a time from a pack of such items and to move that item forward by a fluid technique into a sheet item transport means.

The embodiments of the invention in which an eX- clusive property or privilege is claimed are defined as follows:

1. A sheet item separator device employing a fluid technique to effect the separation of sheet items comprising:

(a) a magazine means to hold sheet items which are to be separated, said magazine having an open end;

(b) pusher means disposed for movement within said magazine means to push sheet items toward said open end;

(c) air jet means disposed in proximity to said open end of said magazine means to direct a single vertical jet of air onto the sheet item which is pushed closest to said open end in order to create a differential of pressure thereon to effect the lifting of said last mentioned sheet item from 4other sheet items held by said magazine means; and

(d) preseparator means having a U-shaped configuration and formed to lit along the sides of said magazirie means and having apertures disposed along the surfaces including the closed end surface of said U-shaped configuration which face the inner portion -of said magazine means, said apertures acting to provide jets of air which operate to riflle a group of sheet items which are approaching said open end.

2. A sheet item separator device according to claim 1 wherein said magazine means is tilted from a vertical position in order to enable any sheet item which has been lifted from said magazine means to move transversely to the movement of said pusher means in response to the force of gravity.

3. A sheet item separator device according to claim 1 wherein there is further provided a gate means disposed on one side of said magazine means at said open end thereof, said gate means being selectively operative to permit and alternatively to stop sheet items from traveling in a transverse direction with respect to said pusher means movement.

4. A sheet item separator device according to claim 1 wherein said pre-separator means has means to permit said magazine means to be operably engaged therewith and alternatively removed therefrom.

5. A sheet item separator device according to claim 1 wherein said air jet means includes a pressure plate means which has a predetermined thickness which is designed to eliminate the inducement `of secondary air movement.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,819,074 l/ 1958 Williams 271-26 3,158,367 11/1964 Tarbuck 271--11 X 3,168,307 2/1965 Walton 271-26 EDWARD A. SROKA, Primary Examiner. 

